Sources in the Free Syrian Army, the main armed group fighting to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad, are announcing that its soldiers have bombed two Hezbollah compounds, one in Syria and another in the Lebanese town of Hermel. If confirmed the development may mark a critical turn in Syria’s...

• Kindle

A defendant on trial in Cyprus for plotting terror attacks against Israeli tourists has admitted to being a member of Hezbollah, a confession that promises to deepen pressure on the European Union to heed U.S. calls and formally designate the Iran-backed group a terrorist organization. The admission by Hossam Taleb...

• Kindle

Indications are growing that Hezbollah has made a series of tactical blunders, in Lebanon and beyond in Syria, which have the group scrambling to recover. In Syria the Iran-backed group finds itself engaged in a deepening sectarian war with Al Qaeda-linked Sunni rebels who see Hezbollah as complete infidels, full stop. Just...

• Kindle

Foreign policy analysis suggesting that Hezbollah has morphed from being an Iranian proxy into being a Lebanese national movement has not held up well in recent months. There are the overarching dynamics that situate the group within intra-Iranian politics and put them on one side of the regional Sunni-Shiite divide....

• Kindle

Hezbollah’s role in propping up the Assad regime in Syria is deepening and – as the regime’s control of critical airports continues to precipitously slip –  more overt: The clash between Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah and Sunni Muslim rebels, in a religiously-mixed area southwest of the city of Homs, shows a growing role...

• Kindle

United Nations human rights officials are urging the U.N. Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, citing documented atrocities committed by forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime during the country’s two-year-long conflict. Most plausible scenarios for prosecution of Syrian officials would require a referral by the United...

• Kindle

A top Iranian military official was reportedly killed by Syrian opposition forces Tuesday while traveling between Syria and Lebanon. Gen. Hassan Shateri, identified by Iranian opposition groups as a member of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, is thought to have been the chief IRGC leader in...

• Kindle

Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai, the doyen of Israeli war correspondents, sat down with a top Hezbollah expert to unpack the likely tactics that the Iran-backed terror group will use in its next war with Israel. Extrapolating from three assumptions – (1) that Israelis are largely resiliant to rocket and missile...

• Kindle

Lebanese Parliament Vice President Farid Makari is predicting that the European Union will resist mounting pressure from both within Europe and abroad to blacklist Hezbollah after the Iran-backed terror group was linked by Bulgarian investigators to the July 2012 Burgas, Bulgaria bombing that killed six civilians. The U.S. State Department has emphasized the care and...

• Kindle

Lebanon has received a report detailing Bulgaria’s investigation into the July 2012 bus bombing at the Black Sea resort city of Burgas, Bulgaria that killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian. Last week Bulgarian authorities linked the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, which holds cabinet-level positions in the sitting Lebanese government, to the...

• Kindle